Written by Gooner in Exile

Football fans are an interesting breed, we tend to be very introspective and look after our own backyard without looking at the bigger picture that surrounds us. The 6% increase has been met with calls for the Board to spend it, and that fans are being priced out of the game.

The rise has also met with comparisons to Manchester United and how they won the league yet charge a lot less for tickets, despite the obvious fact they would get a reduced crowd if they charged more, its an expensive trip from Surrey to add on to a ticket price and there is also the small fact that they do not occupy an area with the best local economy.

This season I have paid £35 for a restricted view (about 5 rows back from a pillar) at Goodison Park, £33 for a seat in Birmingham and £25 for a seat at the JJB. A varied range of prices but as we all know away fans are never given the cheap home seats, to really measure ticket prices at the Emirates we have to compare them to our London neighbours.

Therefore I have looked at Chelsea, Spurs and West Ham prices to gauge whether we are fairly treated or otherwise as fans. Chelsea have already published their 2011/12 prices, West Ham, Arsenal or Spurs have not. It is much harder to compare Season Tickets as some include cup games, some don’t and some don’t include cup games but you are charged when the game arises whether you go or not. West Ham will be irrelevant next year as they have announced a decrease due to slipping out of the Premier League.

First off lets look at the top and bottom price tickets in all stadiums for all clubs. I have only compared standard Adult ticket prices for the Premier League (Chelsea operate a different pricing structure for all rounds of CL and Domestic Cups). All teams operate a grading system to charge fans. (For the sake of these tables I have added 6.5% on to Arsenal’s 2010/11 prices)

Clearly there is not much difference between the prices, also Chelsea’s cheapest ticket is for a Family Enclosure section, the next cheapest ticket is £47 for Cat B, and £51 for Cat A.

Now there is the question of whether we have more or less Cat A games than the others.

Assuming nothing changes next year and West Ham are replaced with QPR by the other London clubs Arsenal fans get to see more games at the Cat B prices than both Chelsea and Spurs.

Now the final question is the quantity of tickets at these lower prices, as I mentioned above the Chelsea cheap seats are very limited. Also despite Arsenal charging a higher amount in the top tiers there is rather a large section of cheap prices.

When looking at the London clubs it would seem fair to exercise a cut off of £40 as being a reasonably cheap admission price. These only occur in Cat B matches or lower so that is where this comparison is based.

Look how many more fans get to see games at the Emirates for less than £40 than at our local rivals.

If the Arsenal board were unscrupulous they could probably add £10 on to every seat price  and still have a full stadium, after all football supporting is an affliction not a choice and none of us are going to choose to go to Spurs or Chelsea if they were cheaper, but the simple fact is us Arsenal fans don’t get too bad a deal when it comes to ticket prices and availability.

Like I said 6% you’re really quite fair.